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(1) Are the Coptic Gospels Gnostic?

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The leaning of sophists towards the bypaths of apocrypha is a constant quantity.

James Joyce, Ulysses

Ever since the initial announcement of the Nag Hammadi discovery, and unto the
present day, the library as a whole has been consistently called gnostic, both in the scholarly literature and in the popular press.[ ] To begin with, the entire Nag Hammadi Library was so labeled in the first published editions of Thomas (1956+59, from Biblio.7)which classification was subsequently accepted by virtually everyone who looked into the text. Thus, representative of almost all subsequent publications was the report of Robert M. Grant & David Noel Freedman, The Secret Sayings of Jesus (1960): [Regarding] the Gospel of Thomas, [Jean] Doresse looked through this gospel in the spring of 1949 and later announced that it was a Gnostic composition.... The Gospel of Philip contains nothing but Gnostic speculations. Wiser counsel, at least regarding Thomas, soon came from no less an authority than Guilles Quispel at the centenary meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in 1964: The Gospel of Thomas ... is not gnostic at all. The adherents of the gnostic interpretation ... must explain how the author could possibly say that the buried corpse could rise again (logion 5, Greek version). Unfortunately, however, Quispel's seemingly irrefutable point was soon eclipsed by a surge of fascination, in both academic publications and the media, with gnosticism's apparently more exotic enticements.
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While there may well be Gnostic writings amongst the several dozen titles found so significantly near the site of Saint Pachomius' archetypal monastery, the three Coptic Gospels in that collection are demonstrably not gnostic in content. This can most readily be shown via an ordinary syllogism; the remainder of the present essay will then consist in proving the two premises, from which the conclusion follows as proven.[ ]
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1. No text, which affirms the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life, can properly be labeled Gnostic. 2. The Coptic Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth (like the entire Old Testament, the New Testament Gospels and Acts) explicitly assert the sacred reality of incarnate life. Therefore 3. They are not Gnostic writings or compilations. QED Proof of the First Premise:

Gnosticism, Encyclopdia Britannica, CD-ROM edition 2002: In the Gnostic view, the unconscious self of man is consubstantial with the Godhead, but because of a tragic fall it is thrown into a world that is completely alien to its real being. Through revelation from above, man becomes conscious of his origin, essence, and transcendent destiny. Gnostic revelation is to be distinguished ... from Christian revelation, because it is not rooted in history and transmitted by Scripture. It is rather the intuition of the mystery of the self. The world, produced from evil matter and possessed by evil demons, cannot be a creation of a good God; it is mostly conceived of as an illusion, or an abortion. Proof of the Second Premise:[ ]
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Thomas 5 (Gk): nothing that has been buried shall not be raised ( ) Th 12: for whose sake the sky and earth have come to be (paei.nta.t.pe.mn.p.ka6.4wpe.etbht.3) Th 22a: the inside as the outside and the outside as the inside (p.sa.n.6oun.n.q.e m.p.sa.n.bol auw p.sa n.bol.n.q.e m.p.sa.n.6oun) Th 22b: a hand in the place of a hand and a foot in the place of a foot (ou.2i` e.p.ma n.n.ou.2i` auw ou.erhte e.p.ma n.ou.erhte) Th 28: incarnate I was manifest to them (a.ei.ouon6.ebol.na.u.6n.sarc) Th 29: the flesh has come to be because of spirit (nta.t.sarc.4wpe.etbe.pna) Th 55: his cross (pe3.sros) Th 101: my mother bore my body (ta.maau gar nta.s.mise pa.swma ebol) Th 113: the Sovereignty of the Father is spread upon the earth (t.mnt.ero.m.p.eiwt.e.s.por4 ebol 6i `m.p.ka6) Philip 25: it is necessary to arise in this flesh (6aps.pe.e.twoun.6n.teei.sarc) Ph 72: the power of the cross (t.dunamis.m.p.sros) Ph 77: on the cross (6i.p.sros) Ph 78: the Lord arose from among the dead;... he is incarnate (a.p.`oeis.twoun.ebol 6n.net.moout ....ounta.3.mmau.n.sarc) Ph 89: his body came into being on that day (pe3.swma.nta.3.4wpe.m.foou.et.mmau) Ph 107: the Living Water is a body (p.moou.et.on6.ou.swma.pe) Ph 114: the Saint is entirely holy, including his body (p.rwme.et.ouaab.3.ouaab thr.3.4a 6rai e.pe3.swma) Ph 132: Abraham ... circumcised the flesh of the foreskin (abra6am.....a.3.sbbe n.t.sarc n.t.akrobustia) Ph 137: under the wings of the cross and in its arms (6a n.tn6.m.p.sros.auw.6a.ne3.2boei) Truth 6+10: he was nailed to a crossbeam (a.u.a3t.3.a.u.4e)

Tr 8: it was appointed for him who would take it and be slain (e.s.kh.m.pet.na.3it.3.n.se.6l6wl.3) Tr 9: Yeshua ... knew that his death is life for many (ihs.....3.saune.`e.pi.mou n.toot.3 ou.wn6 n.6a6.pe) Tr 16: his love embodied it [the Logos] (5.agaph.n.toot.3.a.s.r.ou.swma.6iww.3) Tr 21: the Logos ... became a body (pi.4e`e.....a.3.r.ou.swma) Tr 29: he came forth incarnate in form (nta.3.ei.abal.6i.toot.s.n.ou.sarc.n.smat) Tr 30: light spoke thru his mouth (e.a.3.4e`e.abal.6n.rw.3.n2i.p.ouaein) Tr 37: the Father loves his fragrance and ... blends it with matter (p.iwt maie m.pe3.staei auw.... e.3.4a.tw6.mn.5.6ulh)

It would merely beg the question to claim that all such passages were inserted into otherwise Gnostic documents; to omit from consideration all and only contrary passages per se, constitutes the logical fallacy called petitio principii. Moreover, one would then have to ask why the remaining logia of these three Gospels should be considered Gnostic to begin with, since the sanctity of incarnate reality is there nowhere denied.

Conclusion: It follows that the Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth are not Gnostic compositions or compilations.

It is admittedly scandalous that virtually an entire generation of scholars should have erred regarding something so elementary and so vitally important as this (Th 39!). There were of course a wide variety of Gnostic movements and scriptures in antiquity, often influenced by Platonism's epistemological distrust of the senses; and indeed there have been many gnostico-theosophical sects together with their writings in modern times, no doubt more often influenced by Oriental religious traditions than by Plato. But this has no direct bearing on the three Coptic Gospels, whichlike the four canonical Gospelscannot rightly be considered Gnostic documents.[ ]
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1The citations in Recent Scholarly Comments are but notable exceptions, which the
student will encounter only by an extensive review of the more academic literature. More typical are the prejudicial titles Elaine Pagel's best-selling The Gnostic Gospels (1979); E.J.

Brill's entire scholarly series, Nag Hammadi Studies: The Coptic Gnostic Library; and The Coptic Gnostic Library: A Complete Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, General Editor James M. Robinson (2006)for these last two, more appropriate titles would surely be The Coptic Monastic Library etc. 2Or, in the form of a modal inference: 1. (x)(x ~x) 2. a,b,c. Therefore 3. ~a,b,c. Where: = logical entailment; ~ = negation; x = x asserts the sanctity of incarnate reality; x = x is gnostic; a,b,c = the three Coptic Gospels.
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the Coptic font and install in C:\Windows\Fonts.

4For a recently discovered Coptic Gospel (found in the 1970s near El Minya in Egypt),
which by contrast clearly is gnostic as well as pseudonymous, see theGospel of Judas Iscariot. That document contains such typical gnostic ramblings as: The first is [S]eth who is called Christ, the second is Harmathoth who is [...], the [third] is Galila, the fourth is Yobel, the fifth [is] Adonaios; these are the five who ruled over the underworld, and first of all over chaos.... Then Saklas said to his angels: Let us create a human being after the likeness and after the image. They fashioned Adam and his wife Evewho is called, in the cloud, Zoe. See also April D. DeConick, Gospel Truth, New York Times OpEd (1.XII.07).